Lakers begin interviewing coaching candidates

With the draft lottery now behind them, the Lakers will take “at least two or three weeks” to hire their new coach, General Manager Mitch Kupchak said Wednesday.

The Lakers are searching for Mike D’Antoni’s replacement after the 63-year-old coach resigned May 1 with one year left on his contract. Kupchak’s timeline could mean the Lakers have a coach in place for the June 26 draft, but he previously said that was not necessarily a priority.

The biggest sign of progress in the languorous search came when Kupchak confirmed the Lakers have begun interviewing candidates. The Register confirmed a Yahoo report that Kupchak has held a formal interview with former Lakers coach Mike Dunleavy, who last coached in 2010 with the Clippers.

Dunleavy coached the Lakers from 1990-92, leading them to the Western Conference finals in 1991. If the Lakers are looking for a change in style from D’Antoni’s run-and-gun, who-cares-if-you-miss offense, they couldn’t get further from it than by hiring Dunleavy.

Even with the first candidate identified, Kupchak insisted the search is young, and that the Lakers “will interview several more than three or four candidates.”

This search will be significantly more thorough than in 2012, when the Lakers fired Mike Brown five games into the season and a week later hired D’Antoni, picking the former Phoenix coach over Phil Jackson and Dunleavy.

“This process will be considerably longer for a bunch of different reasons,” Kupchak said. “No. 1, we have a lot more time; No. 2, we don’t really know what our team looks like, so there is no urgency now.”

The general manager left a lot of doors open, but provided a much clearer road map for the Lakers’ plans than in previous interviews. He did not specify how vast the candidate pool would be, but suggested that they have not narrowed it very much.

Kupchak added that the team would prefer an experienced coach, and that it does not plan to target a current head coach of another team, which would eliminate Chicago’s Tom Thibodeau.

The Lakers have been linked with Oklahoma City guard Derek Fisher, who won five championships with the Lakers and is close with Kobe Bryant. Kupchak said the Lakers would prefer to hire a coach with “some experience … but not necessarily.”

Last summer, the Clippers pried Doc Rivers away from Boston, and Wednesday Minnesota reportedly received permission to interview Memphis coach Dave Joerger for its opening. But that doesn’t appear to be the route the Lakers will take.

“Right now it’s not a factor,” Kupchak said. “But like I said, I don’t see the process ending in the next two or three weeks. It depends how the process goes. We may want to open it up and consider other people.”

While the Lakers take their time, other teams have begun to fill coaching vacancies. Golden State hired Phil Jackson disciple Steve Kerr last week, and Detroit hired former Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy to coach and oversee basketball operations.

Kupchak said those hires did not affect the Lakers’ search.

Four other teams still have coaching vacancies: Minnesota, New York, Cleveland and Utah.

The first shoe dropped on the Lakers’ offseason Tuesday night, when they fell one spot to seventh in the draft lottery.

Kupchak had identified the lottery as a point when the Lakers’ coaching search would begin to intensify.

“I’m sure names will come out within the next couple of days,” Kupchak said. “We’ve started our process and we intend to continue the process in terms of talking to potential coaches, whether they’re informal or formal interviews.”

In addition to a coaching search, the Lakers will continue intense draft preparation. Kupchak said he was already contacting player agents Tuesday night after the lottery about setting up workouts for players who could be drafted anywhere between picks 1 and 20.

“We think drafting at No. 7 there’s going to be a good player there,” Kupchak said.